The United States of America are in trouble. To some, it is a
horrible surprise. Many others have helplessly watched it coming for
years.

At the most fundamental levels, with regard to its continued
national and cultural existence, in both economic and philosophical
terms, this country is in vastly worse danger at this moment, than it
was during the so-called Great Depression or the War Between the
States. More and more, it appears that the destruction of the American
economy and the civilization it supports was a deliberately calculated
act.

No fewer than fifteen decades of federal government usurpation and
mismanagementculminating in the most openly rapacious and criminal
administrations in its historyhave brought the nation to this
point. Of the ruling parties, the Democrats are arguably the worst
offenders in this regard, relentlessly expanding the power and scope
of government, invariably at the expense of the personal freedom and
individual enterprise this country was supposed to have been all
about.

The War Century was largely a Democratic century.

While Republicans properly criticize the many shortcomings of the
Democrats, they systematically and hypocritically overlook or ignore
their own part in the destruction of a civilization that once stood as
the brightest hope for all Mankind. Both have conspired together to
block any third party that might have set America on a different
course, one more consistent with the dreams and aspirations of its
Founders.

In any event, this essay is about what needs to be done, without
regard to who might actually do it, Democrat, Republican, or anybody
else, with the warning and understanding that if it doesn't get done,
America is doomed, the rest of the world will inexorably follow, and
our species is about to plunge into a long, dark night that may never
end.

THE SOLUTION

It may come as an annoyance to individuals who think of themselves
as "nuts and bolts" problem-solvers that in the field of practical
economics, expectations can be just as important as actualities. To
them, I'm sure that sounds indistinguishable from the very cynical
observation that in politics, perception is more important than
reality.

But the fact is that people in an economic context have to be able
to plan, and to do that, they have to make guesses about a future
which, at best, is always murky, and which, muddled by halfwitted,
hamfisted, off-and-on government interference, becomes impossible to
predict.

America is in a Depression, and more loans, to the banks or from
the banks, more money-printingmore debtaren't going to get it
out. Make no mistake about who is responsible for what happened. For
decades, both parties spent vastly more than the government took in,
creating debtwith interestthat had be paid by printing paper
money and generating credit where there was no real wealth to back it
up.

The mortal blow to America's future came when lending institutions
were forced by Congress, first under the Carter Administration, and
then again under the Clinton Administration, to make home loans to
individuals they knew perfectly would be unable to pay them back.
Naturally, as defaults and foreclosures started to pile up, the banks
began to fail, which caused a cascadean avalancheof other
failures.

It didn't help that by then, the country was embroiled in two
illegal, expensive, and irrational wars in the middle east, initiated
for the most cynical of reasons, using the atrocity of 9/11 as an
excuse.

In any case, the financial collapse was in no way the fault of
capitalism or the market system, as the opportunistic left which bears
the real guiltand its whorish media—presently claim, but of a
command-and-control system which, no less than that of the late,
unlamented Soviets, was doomed to collapse of its own unbearable
weight.

The current administration has done nothing right and everything
wrong; increasing numbers of individuals think it isn't any accident.
What's actually needed is a stability of expectations, and an end to
the lethal drain on the country's resources that government, in fact,
represents.

TAXES

The first, most important thing that anyone in charge should do is
declare a universal tax amnesty. All past debts to government at any
level will be null and void. That alone would be sufficient to stop
the plunge, trigger growth, and start businesses and industry hiring
again.

Any government shortfalls caused by this policy should be dealt
with, not by more deficit spending, but by serious reductions in
government activity, by downsizing personnel, and by liquidation of
assets.

And that's just for practice. The next step, to be announced at
the same time as the amnestyaimed at restoring predictability to
the market while infusing it with cash (or, rather, allowing it to
infuse itself), without government loans or further inflationmust
be a total moratorium on every form of taxation, for a period of at
least one year, so that the economy can get back on its feet and
recover from the damage the last several administrations have done to
it.

Once again, when politicians and bureaucrats whimper, demanding to
know who will "pay" for such a "program", they will be informed that
they will. Government will do less. And it holds millions of acres of
land and tens of thousands of buildings that can be auctioned off
(once the original owners have been made whole), endless parking lots
covered with vehicles, hangars full of aircraft, harbors full of boats
and ships, vast warehouses stuffed with hardware and supplies that
were obtained with stolen money and should be returned to the free
market.

If all else fails, there are at least a hundredor perhaps a
thousandtimes as many public employees as there ought to be. Some
can be let go, as well. The recovering market should absorb them with
ease.

During the tax moratorium, the details can be worked out on an
innovative new two-tier systemin reality, simply another interim
measureunder which no taxes of any kind may be levied against any
object or activity protected by the Bill of Rights (establishing long
overdue parity with the First Amendment protection afforded to
churches and religion) or against any of the five fundamental human
requirements of life, food, clothing, shelter, transportation, and
self-defense.

Healthcare would be included under self-defense; a separate effort
would be called for to establish a formal, Constitutional separation
of medicine and state, exactly as there needs to be for science and
state.

Another essential change is the permanent and total abolition of
taxes on so-called "capital gains". Americans are always criticized,
the world over, for not putting enough money in savings. The primary
reason is basically Marxoid-inspired legislation against "unearned
income".

Likewise, so-called "corporate taxation" is just another cynical
shot at sucking the Productive Class drymostly with their own
idiotic approval. No corporation pays taxes, they pass them on to
their customers, doubling the price of goods and services. Abolishing
corporate taxation would, in and of itself, create an historic
economic boom that will change the course of Americanand worldhistory.

So-called "limited liability" must end, as well, along with the
pernicious legal fiction that the corporation is a person, pulling a
long overdue emergency brake on the size, wealth, influence, and power
of corporations, and forcing their ownersthe stockholders who used
to be in controlto take full responsibility for whatever companies
do.

The ultimate goal, of course, must be the total elimination of all
taxation. Abolitionists who struggled for three hundred fifty years to
put an end to chattel slavery faced no more daunting a task. One of
the problems this supposedly revolutionary country has always suffered
is that its governmentno different from the stagnant European
satrapies it should have differentiated itself from in this regardis
financed by extortion and theft, the pervasive threat to beat
non-compliers up, kidnap, or kill them. At the most charitable, it's a
rotten example for teaching children proper behavior. It makes one
wonder whether facing the slings and arrows of no government at all
might be a better choice than paying government to protect us from
itself.

HONEST MONEY

Along with freeing America from taxation, the nation must be free
of government-issued fiat money, as well, allowing the market system
to create, all by itself, many kinds of money from commodities with an
intrinsic value, and imposing no coercive standard on anyone of any
kind.

Money is, above and beyond everything, a medium of communication,
conveying the vital datum known as "price"how much of a thing
should be made, what should it be sold forthe lack of which killed
the Soviet Union and spells ultimate death for any command-and-control
economy. A government monopoly on money is censorship. And inflationprinting
too much paper money or generating "air credit"is a
lie.

REGULATION

At the same time, as taxes are being cut and abolished, something
must be done about the mind-boggling, back-breaking burden of laws and
regulations at all levels of government, federal, state, county, and
municipal. Speed is of the essence if decades of damage inflicted by
Democrats and Republicans is to be repairedyet, some estimate that
there are in excess of fifteen million regulations at just the federal
level.

Individuals must be freethey must be encouraged, in factto
make what would amount to criminal charges against regulations and
regulators on Constitutional, as well as other grounds. Government
must be compelled to defend itselfand each and every item of
regulationin purely Constitutional terms, or to abandon the given
regulation altogether. In the end, a thorough sweep of regulations
must be made, employing Article 1, Section 8which explicitly
enumerates the very few acceptable functions of governmentas a
broom.

JUSTICE

This plan would not be complete without mentioning certain items
of "housekeeping" that must be done before this nation can begin to
heal.

Foremost among those items is to bring a halt to the criminal
mischief committed by the last two administrations under the guise of
economic "stimulus". This "policy" must be brought to a halt now, and
any unspent money returned to the general fund. Political cronies who
were the actual beneficiaries of this giveaway scheme must be stripped
of all their embezzled fortunes while the politicians responsible are
removed from office and prosecuted for having violated their oath of
office.

Other measures are called for if we are to get this recovery right
and prevent our grandchildren from having to do it all over again. No
lawyers, for example, should ever be permitted in the legislature or
in any other lawmaking body. Their self-serving presence there today
represents a massive conflict of interest that must be swiftly
resolved.

The Founding Fathers' worst, most calamitous mistake must be
corrected by giving the Bill of Rights a penalty clause with real
teeth.

It might go something like this:

"Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government,
who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify,
evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this
Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily
removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and
benefits, including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life."

The medieval doctrine of Sovereign Immunitythe vile notion
that the King can do no wrongmust be dispensed with, once and for
all.

Consistent with that, this nation can never heal fully until the
criminals actually responsible for atrocities like the Philadelphia
MOVE bombing, Ruby Ridge, Waco, and perhaps even the Oklahoma City
bombing (to mention only four of many) are hunted down and brought to
justice.

And at the end of the reform period, a greater Moratorium, against
all further legislation of any kind for 100 years, must be appended to
the Constitution. A notable single exception would be made for bills
of repeal.

No discussion of economic reform and recovery can be considered
complete without finally addressing two clusters of issues that have
always impinged directly on this nation's economic health and
wellbeing.

TRADE

The first, international trade, is relatively easy to dispose of.
In a country that is truly freenot one that merely says it is, or
pretends to beany decision about what to trade, or with whom, or
for how much, does not rest with government, which can have nothing
legitimate whatever to say with regard to "acts of capitalism between
consenting adults", but with individual consumers, businessmen, and
entrepreneurs.

Tariffs, a form of taxation that has been with us since America's
beginning, have distorted markets, drained resources, made ill-gotten
fortunes for the politically connected, and caused the War Between the
States. There are many who argue that tariffs also cause international
wars.

Businesses that try to use tariffs against foreign competitors are
picking our pockets by denying us the benefits of free trade. They
don't deserve to be protected by the law. And any "agreement" longer
than half a page is not about free trade, no matter what it calls
itself.

RATIONAL DEFENSE

Finally, there is the matter of foreign policy and war.

Throughout America's history, its government has managed to supply
at least one war for each generation of old men to send young men off
to fight for them, just as they were sent off in their youth to fight
for their generation of old men. The cycle is insane and must be
stopped.

Elsewhere, I have listed America's major conflicts and examined
each to see if it could be called a "just war". The vast majority fail
to pass the examination. Only the Revolution, the Mexican War, and the
War Between the States pass muster, All the rest were irrational,
fought to enrich some group or enhance their power, and could have
been avoided altogether, along with the death and destruction they
caused.

"Why those three wars in particular?" I pretend to hear you ask.

Well, pretty obviously, if there hadn't been a Revolution, there
wouldn't be any United States of America. I have friendsmostly
Britishwho think our War of Independence was unnecessary, but I
doubt we'd have made the centuries-spanning leap, technologically,
economically, and especially in terms of the philosophy of individual
liberty, that we made had we remained a part of that mercantilist
empire.

America had no choice about the Mexican War, which was declared by
Mexico against the United States because it had annexed Texasthe
independence of which politicians in Mexico insanely refused to
recognize despite their defeat by Sam Houston at the Battle of San
Jacinto and the utter humiliation of General Antonio Lopez de Santa
Anna. Mexico deserved what she got, her whimperings to the contrary,
notwithstanding.

Finally, there is the matter of the War Between the States,
commonly, but incorrectly, known as the Civil War. From a Northern
point of view, it was as unnecessary as any other war the United
States has involved itself in. (Contrary to Lincolnian propaganda and
popular, public school belief, it had nothing whatever to do with
black chattel slaveryif it had, then why do we have photographs of
the Capitol dome being rebuilt throughout the warby slaves?) But
for the South, there was no alternative. While Southerners represented
only a quarter of the U.S. population, through tariffs imposed by the
North, they were already paying 80 percent of the taxes. Lincoln and
his orcs promised to triple the tariff, reducing all Southerners to
serfdom.

And yes, I include the so-called "good war" as unnecessary. In
fact it was an observation of my fathera gallant Air Corps
veteran, former prisoner of war, and 30-year career Air Force officerabout
the strange coincidence of a war for each generation, that
made me think about the other wars Americans have fought to no good
purpose.

It is impossible to estimate the degree to which all these wars,
especially in the 20th century, distorted our history and retarded its
progress. The trillions spent prosecuting them, the resulting waste of
resources consumed and destroyed, the loss of human potential would be
paralyzing, were we not thoroughly numbed to it by close historical
acquaintance.

Just a single sobering thought: the genius who might have cured
cancer died, instead, as a nineteen-year-old private or seaman in
World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, the Balkans, or in
Afghanistan.

And for what? The government and its useful idiots say it was for
freedom. But not single American's freedom was ever endangered by any
of these enemies. And not one of these wars prevented what happened on
9/11/2001.

No, for once I have not digressed. If America is ever to recover
from this economic crisis, its leaders will have to give up their
addiction to war, even though it is, indeed, the very "health of the
state".

Two solutions come to mind. The first is what I call the "You Go
First Amendment" under which (1) the War Powers Act is repealed so
that no President can ever start a war again without a Congressional
declaration of war, and (2) all those voting for such a declaration
will immediately join the (now former) President who requested it, in
uniform, on the prospective battlefield, ahead of anybody else in the
military.

Finally, because taxation is the fuel of war, military spending,
as we have experienced it since World War II, has to stop. If the
country needs to be defended, let it be done as the Founding Fathers
intended, by a network of well-armed, well trained, and well-supplied
volunteer militiaspreferably organized and prepared at the county
levelamong whom the technical means to defend America must be
distributed.

Freed of being the "cops of the world" we will prosper as never
before.

THE FUTURE

As to how we get from here to there, I believe showing people what
"there" is like, may motivate them to work to change "here". That was
the idea behind my novel, The Probability Broach, the only shortcoming
of which is that so far it hasn't reached a sufficiently wide audience
yet.

Of course it may, if things continue to get worse.

What happens next is entirely up to you. Every politician in the
country, in every party and at every level of government, must be made
familiar with "The Plan". None of themnot even the Libertarians or
Tea Party Republicansare going to want to take the steps outlined
here. They will attempt to pat you on the head or react hysterically.
They will call you nameslike "radical" or "extremist"and
threaten you. If you're reading this, you have already been identified
by the unconstitutional Department of Homeland Security as a domestic
terrorist.

It is up to you to hold fast through that period.

Then slowly, timidly, as these ideas start to spread, some will
adopt portions of what's offered here, ultimately claiming it as their
own.

Let them.

We will know the truth.

Reprinted from Down With Power by L. Neil Smith.
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